The verbal portion of the test consists of three types of questions： Reading

　　Comprehension， Arguments， and Sentence Correction. They are designed to test your ability to reason using the written word. There is roughly the same number of each type of question， for a total of 41 questions.

　　READING COMPREHENSION

　　FORMAT

　　The GMAT reading comprehension section passages are about 200 to 400 words long. The subject matter of a passage can be almost anything， but the most common themes are politics， history， culture， science， and business.

　　READING METHODS

　　Some books recommend speed-reading the passages. This is a mistake. Speed reading is designed for ordinary， nontechnical material. Because this material

　　is filled with “fluff，” you can skim over the nonessential parts and still get the gist——and often more——of the passage. However， GMAT passages are dense. Some are actual quoted articles. Most often， however， they are based on articles that have been condensed to about one-third their original length.

　　During this process no essential information is lost， just the “fluff” is cut. This is why speed reading will not work here——the passages contain too much information. You should， however， read somewhat faster than you normally do， but not to the point that your comprehension suffers. You will have to experiment to find your optimum pace.

　　Many books recommend reading the questions before the passage. But there are two big problems with this method. First， some of the questions are a paragraph long， and reading a question twice can use up precious time. Second， there are up to seven questions per passage， and psychologists have shown that we can hold in our minds a maximum of about three thoughts at any one time （some of us have trouble simply remembering phone numbers）。 After reading all seven questions， the student will turn to the passage with his mind clouded by half-remembered thoughts. This will at best waste his time and distract him. More likely it will turn the passagesintosa disjointed mass of information.

　　However， one technique that you may find helpful is to preview the passage by reading the first sentence of each paragraph. Generally， the topic of a paragraph is contained in the first sentence. Reading the first sentence of each paragraph will give an overview of the passage. The topic sentences act in essence as a summary of the passage. Furthermore， since each passage is only three or four paragraphs long， previewing the topic sentences will not use up an inordinate amount of time.

　　The passages presented depend on how well you are performing on the test. However， unlike other parts of the test， the questions presented do not depend on your performance. The longer passages will require you to scroll through the passage.

　　THE SIX QUESTIONS

　　The key to performing well on the passages is not the particular reading technique you use （so long as it‘s neither speed reading nor pre-reading the questions）。 Rather the key is to become completely familiar with the question types——there are only six——so that you can anticipate the questions that might be asked as you read the passage and answer those that are asked more quickly and efficiently. As you become familiar with the six question types， you will gain an intuitive sense for the places from which questions are likely to be drawn. This will give you the same advantage as that claimed by the “pre-reading-the-questions” technique， without the confusion and waste of time. Note， thesgroupsin which the questions are asked roughly corresponds to thesgroupsin which the main issues are presented in the passage. Early questions should correspond to information given early in the passage， and so on.